


Louder for Their Absence

by tanarill



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Arguing, Bacon, Breakfast, Breakfast in Bed, Cuddles, Dorks in Love, Drunkenness, Eggs, Ghost Zone, Ghosts, Hangover, Heavy Metal, Hypocrisy, Idiots in Love, Love, M/M, Partnership, Pregnancy, Punk Rock, The family that slays together stays together, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-06
Updated: 2008-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-29 06:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17803064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanarill/pseuds/tanarill
Summary: Danny and Vlad have an argument. Then they make up.





	Louder for Their Absence

**Author's Note:**

> This was from 2008. I can't remember what the backstory here was supposed to be. I think it was supposed to be eros when I wrote it, but looking back I feel like Danny Fenton<>Vlad Masters is a weirder relationship, but one that would both have been truer to their characters and been healthier for their character arcs.

Danny woke up the next morning to bright sunlight, the smell of someone doing wonderful things to bacon that would almost make the pig glad it had died, and a searing hangover. He made it to the bathroom before throwing up, but that didn’t console him in the least. Vlad had explained to him ages ago that as a halfa, he could not get drunk, no matter how hard he tried, at least on regular alcohol. (He’d been particularly miserable, because at that point he’d been drinking steadily for _five whole hours_ and it probably would have been useful to know this beforehand!) To get drunk, he had to go to the Ghost Zone.  
  
He did not drink to get drunk anymore. Much. The first hangover had almost convinced him not to in any case, and then there was Vlad.  
  
Vlad. Who was currently making him breakfast. Probably going to bring it to him in bed.  
  
He heaved into the toilet again.  
  
When he was done paying his respects to the porcelain god, Danny took a shower, after which he felt much better, and went to breakfast.  
  
“There you are, my dear,” said Vlad cheerfully, when he shambled into the kitchen. Oh god, Vlad had even gotten out the _duck eggs_.  
  
“What happened last night?” asked Danny, without preamble.  
  
Vlad’s face darkened for a moment. “You went out and got drunk. What did you think?”  
  
Danny sighed. “ _Why_ did I go get drunk?”  
  
“Something to do with Samantha, what was it . . . ” Vlad said, as if it had momentarily slipped his mind. “Oh, yes. She’s going to have a baby. Again.”  
  
Danny flopped into a chair, set his elbows on the table, and leaned forward to run his hands through his hair.  
  
“Really, Daniel, I don’t see why you insist on going out and doing this every time she gets pregnant.” This was patently a lie. Vlad knew exactly why he did it. It had to do with the two facts that, a, Danny was not the father of those children and, b, Vlad thought by pregnancy number seven, Danny should grow up and get over the fact that Sam hadn’t married him. Danny thought this blatantly hypocritical given the _twenty years_ Vlad had spent chasing his mother, but now was not the time to have that discussion, _again_. “You could just be happy for her.”  
  
“Shut up and feed me,” groused Danny.  
  
“Yes, dear,” said Vlad, setting a plate in front of him and giving him a peck on the cheek. There were smiley face eggs.  
  
After a few experimental bites-not to see if the food was good, but to see if he could keep it down-Danny asked, “Did I at least make it home on my own?”  
  
“No,” said Vlad.  
  
_Shit,_ thought Danny.  
  
  
By mid afternoon, his hangover had subsided to the point that he could retreat to his room and turn on music. In high school he’d liked techno, and then in college he’d discovered German Industrial. He ratcheted it up as high as it would go and shouted the lyrics at the top of his lungs. The song about ghosts of people killed in nasty ways. Over and over and _over_ again. It fit his mood.  
  
At five forty-two, Vlad walked into the room, turned off the music, and before Danny could protest, kissed him senseless.  
  
“Does this mean you aren’t mad at me anymore?” asked Danny.  
  
“Furious,” replied Vlad, and kissed him again.  
  
  
Later, lounging in bed with Vlad curled around him, Danny asked, “Do you ever wish it hadn’t happened?”  
  
There was a long pause before Vlad replied. “I don’t think I’d be human if I never thought about what life would be like if things were different. I _used_ to regret it.”  
  
Danny squeezed his hand, fingers intertwined with Vlad’s. “And now?”  
  
“And now . . . I have you.”  
  
Danny smiled.  
  
  
No one else, upon watching them that day, would have realized they were even having an argument. Jazz had once shown up in the middle of one and commented that she wished her husband would be so sweet when she had morning sickness. Danny couldn’t find a tactful way to point out that Vlad was never, and had never been, this _insufferably cheerful_ when he wasn’t either kicking the crap out of Danny or gloating.  
  
Vlad really hated German industrial, and kept Danny anyway.  
  
They didn’t talk about it. They’d never talked about it, after that first time Vlad had gone out because Maddie (a woman he still loved even though he hated her with a passion) had swallowed her pride and called him up, hysterical, because Danny was missing. They hadn’t talked about it then either, but, ten years and who knows how many back-to-back tag-team festivals of partnership and mayhem (Vlad called them battles) later, Vlad would still get up at two-thirty in the morning and go looking for him, through every bar in the Ghost Zone if necessary.  
  
It didn’t matter. They didn’t say talk about it, because they both knew anyway, and those three words were all the louder for it.

**Author's Note:**

> I have an interview! EXCITE!!
> 
> Also I am learning mammalian cell culture, ie, petri-dish-cells. They don't live in a petri dish and they are tremendous divas who must be pampered constantly. These particular cells are cancer cells, which are actually _more_ hardy than most. The really amazing thing isn't that cancer kills people. It's that most of the cells in your body are not constantly dying of: oxygen deprivation, nutrient deprivation, low pH, high pH, microbes and mycoplasma (a specific type of parasitic mibcrobe), viruses, contamination by HeLa cells, growth factor deprivation, too few cells in the immediate vicinity, too many cells in the immediate vicinity, too much CO2, being too dry, not having something to stick to . . . Complex multicellular life, man.


End file.
